Canada moves to protect caregivers

TORONTO—The federal government announced steps Saturday to better safeguard foreign caregivers from abuse and exploitation, but opposition critics say the changes Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is proposing won’t provide full protection, the Canadian Press reported.

The revised regulations stem from months of consultations with caregiver groups, and Kenney expressed hope they would provide a better life for people who come to Canada to become nannies.

“To ensure they’re not subject to abusive situations, to ensure they’re not exploited by unscrupulous consultants and to ensure they have a fair, clear pathway to permanent residency,” Kenney told a news conference.

Among the changes Kenney is planning to the Live-in Caregiver Program is elimination of the requirement for caregivers to undergo a second medical exam.

The measure was proposed by Juana Tejada, a Toronto nanny who developed cancer while working as a caregiver and was initially denied permanent resident status when she failed her second medical examination.

The changes would also give nannies up to four years to complete a total of two years’ work needed to apply for landed-immigrant status. The limit now is three years.

The government hopes the change will prevent events like pregnancies or loss of employment from stopping live-in caregivers from meeting government requirements.

Those wanting to hire a nanny from overseas would have to pick up the cost of bringing them to Canada and provide medical coverage until the nannies are eligible for provincial health plans. They would also have to pay any fees to recruiters, Kenney said.

“No longer will caregivers be paying people to get the jobs to work in Canada,” Kenney said.

The government is also going to require caregivers’ employers to clearly outline job duties, hours of work, overtime and holidays, sick leave, and termination and resignation terms.

Employers who provide significantly different wages, working conditions or occupations than they promised may be blacklisted.

The public will have 30 days to comment on the changes before the final version takes effect sometime next year.

The changes were prompted after several caregivers went public with stories of being underpaid and being forced to work long hours.

Some were invited to testify before a parliamentary committee and their stories prompted the government to launch a consultation process with caregiver groups.

Opposition MPs said that while Kenney’s proposals were a start, they fell far short of the protection that foreign caregivers needed.

Kenney should have granted live-in caregivers immediate status as permanent residents when they arrived in Canada, opposition MPs said.

Jim Karygiannis, a Toronto Liberal MP, dismissed the proposed changes as “window dressing,” saying that giving caregivers permanent residency status would be the best way to give them rights.

“Why don’t you just land them,” Karygiannis said in a telephone interview.

“Why don’t you make them Canadian landed immigrants so they can have their rights and everything else that we enjoy?”

New Democrat MP Don Davies, the party’s deputy Citizenship and Immigration critic, said immediate permanent residency status would remove uncertainty for caregivers.

“As landed immigrants, they would not have to worry about being deported when they stand up for their labor rights,” Davies said in a news release.

Both MPs also said granting immediate permanent residency status would allow foreign caregivers to bring their families with them, rather than have to wait in limbo for several years.

Another New Democrat MP, Olivia Chow, the party’s immigration critic, was skeptical that requiring employers to clearly outline job descriptions and pay would curtail exploitation of nannies and other caregivers.

“On paper it looks good,” Chow said in a telephone interview.

“But without the kind of inspection that is needed between the federal and provincial governments, what the law is would remain on paper.

“Mark by words, I think that a year from now we will still have stories about live-in caregivers being exploited.” –Manila Standard Today